Overview:
Recent high profile homophobic attacks in London and other UK cities bring the presence of homophobia to the surface of urban life, and suggest a need to consider such violence in relation to other forms of hate crime and lines of social and cultural division in cities. Across a range of urban disciplines and practices - including geography, architecture, art and crime science - researchers will use this workshop to contextualise media reports of a resurgence of homophobia in London in relation to broader debates over citizenship, sexuality and urban space. Papers will examine the geographies of homophobia, exploring, for example, the mapping and cultural representation of homophobic crime; the demarcation (and targeting) of 'safe' zones - such as specific streets, venues or 'Pride' marches - in which individuals can express their sexual orientation supposedly without fear; historical case studies of homophobia; resistance and creative responses through art practices and activism; wider histories of hate crime as a prompt for the political mobilisation of urban communities; and possible links between homophobia and new forms of religiosity or nationalism.